matteocaldari
Level 1 (0 points)

Q: 10.6.5 and wifi issues

Since I upgraded to 10.6.5, my MacBook Pro (Early 2006) cannot connect to my USR9110 (802.11 g) access point. 
From 10.6 on, there's been always troubles when resuming after sleep, but now even at startup the connection goes timeout.

All other devices (an iPhone,an iPad and a MacBook Pro (Late 2006) with 10.5) work perfectly.

I tried rebooting, changing  the wifi channel, updating the access point firmware, turning on and off airport, resetting the SMC, switching to WEP, switching to WPA, switching to unencrypted. Nothing changes, connection timeout. 

MacBook Pro 1,1, Mac OS X (10.6.5), early 2006

Posted on Nov 11, 2010 5:53 AM

by tenortim,Solvedanswer
tenortim tenortim
Level 1 (10 points)
A:
OK, my wife just went through this ordeal (2007 MBP, Atheros 5424 chipset).
Thanks to the work of others diagnosing this, I found a solution that doesn't require a full downgrade, although a little bravery might be needed.

As has already been stated, the version of the firmware for the Atheros cards changed in 10.6.5. This seems to be the culprit. Did any bother testing this fully? The new firmware is unable to maintain a connection under conditions that the older firmware handles with aplomb. Anyway, we clearly need the older driver/firmware, but downgrading to 10.6.4 seems rather draconian, so I set about finding a solution that just fixed that problem.

To cut to the chase, you can run the 10.6.4 drivers on 10.6.6. To do so,
1) Download the 10.6.4 Combo update and the Pacifist program that allows one to extract files from, amongst others, ".pkg" files.
2) Mount the update .dmg, open the package in pacifist, extract the subtree "/System/Library/Extensions/IO80211Family.kext" to a convenient location.
3) As root, cd to /System/Library/Extensions, rename IO80211Family.kext to IO8021Family.1066 (or anything else to back it up), and copy in the replacement IO80211Family.kext that we extracted from 10.6.4.
4) Download, install and run "Kext Utility" (Google it, it's at Insanely Mac). It should ask for your password, run, and fix up the kext permissions and caches.
5) Reboot. You should now be on the new (old) driver/firmware. Verify by running "About this Mac" -> "More Info" -> "Network" -> "Airport". As stated, the newer firmware is 2.1.14.5, the working firmware is 2.0.19.10.

After doing this, my wife's MBP is back to full functionality and domestic harmony is restored. Apple, please revert this driver and inform Atheros that it does not work correctly.

Message was edited by: tenortim (fix typos)

Posted on Jan 13, 2011 12:03 PM

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matteocaldari

Q: 10.6.5 and wifi issues

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  • by wifiguru,

    wifiguru wifiguru Nov 21, 2010 12:42 PM in response to Sly Raskal
    Level 2 (240 points)
    Nov 21, 2010 12:42 PM in response to Sly Raskal
    Sly,
    I noticed your router is draft2.0 11n compatible. It is possible that some fix that went into 10.6.5 resulted in a better support of the standard ( 11n which is ratified now) and hence you are seeing these issues.
    Here's a quick test. Downgrade to 11g instead of 11n on your wireless network's and check if you still see the issue. I suspect that you won't see this issue with plain 11g.
    You might just have to upgrade to a 11n ratified ( WiFi Certified) router if 11g/11a works but 11n does not.

  • by wifiguru,

    wifiguru wifiguru Nov 21, 2010 12:46 PM in response to SE30 v R2D2
    Level 2 (240 points)
    Nov 21, 2010 12:46 PM in response to SE30 v R2D2
    What wireless mode are you on ? 11n/ 11g ? You might just want to buy yourself a under 50$ wireless router that does 11n and enjoy better connectivity. Carrier based router's ( 2 Wire/ SMC etc.) are pretty pathetic when it comes to performance and keeping up with standards and updating firmware etc.

  • by wifiguru,

    wifiguru wifiguru Nov 21, 2010 1:10 PM in response to Michael Jones11
    Level 2 (240 points)
    Nov 21, 2010 1:10 PM in response to Michael Jones11
    Michael,
    I would recommend you get rid of your supposed fix. Try getting rid of this setting and there is a high chance your wireless will work just fine now if it's working already.
    What's even worse is that if you have this custom setting, the next time Apple releases a software update, it might end up not updating this file or picking an invalid setting since your file has some invalid data in it that you added and you might run into worser issues.
    As a rule of thumb do not ever update internal plist files by hand unless you know exactly what you are doing.

  • by wifiguru,

    wifiguru wifiguru Nov 21, 2010 1:14 PM in response to harry@hgac.com
    Level 2 (240 points)
    Nov 21, 2010 1:14 PM in response to harry@hgac.com
    Harry,
    You have an Atheros based card.
    An easy way to check is launch System Profiler and then look under Network->AirPort on the left panel.
    Click on it and on the right side you will notice something to this effect:

    Card Type: AirPort Extreme (0x14E4, 0xD1)
    Firmware Version: Broadcom BCM43xx 1.0 (5.10.131.36.1)

    If it says Broadcom, you know its a Broadcom chipset. If it says Atheros, you have an Atheros card.

  • by Steffen Bendix,

    Steffen Bendix Steffen Bendix Nov 22, 2010 12:56 AM in response to Tom Riddle
    Level 1 (60 points)
    Mac OS X
    Nov 22, 2010 12:56 AM in response to Tom Riddle
    Deleting the keychain entries works for me so far.

  • by BigBlueApple,

    BigBlueApple BigBlueApple Nov 22, 2010 9:05 AM in response to matteocaldari
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Nov 22, 2010 9:05 AM in response to matteocaldari
    Apple advertised this update as improving Airport connectivity.

    After such an improvement you should not have to be faffing about, changing channels,deleting keychains etc etc.

    This is a nonesense.

    Just accept the fact that if your mac is 3 years old or older it is finished.

    Go out and get a new one.

    That's what Apple want you to do anyway so just do it!

    PS I "regraded" my mac back to 10.6.2 after 10.6.5 - solid as a rock now. Thanks Apple.

  • by Bert Merryweather,

    Bert Merryweather Bert Merryweather Nov 22, 2010 12:44 PM in response to JuanSkom
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 22, 2010 12:44 PM in response to JuanSkom
    I am on a late 2007 MacBook and experiencing the same wifi dropouts.

    The main problem I have is returning from sleep - most of the time my MacBook cannot re-establish a connection to the closed WPA2 Personal network provided through my late 2007 AirPort Extreme.

    Everything was working fine on 10.6.4.

    Have tried a few of the suggestions and things have been temporarily better, then actually revert to being worse (e.g. logging off and back on again has restored a connection; followed a few suggestions and at times not even a reboot will fix things...)

    A bit nervous of updating my iPhone to 4.2 now...

  • by John Wiedenheft,

    John Wiedenheft John Wiedenheft Nov 22, 2010 8:27 PM in response to StuartH
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 22, 2010 8:27 PM in response to StuartH
    These steps worked perfectly for me. Thanks!

  • by gilduz,

    gilduz gilduz Nov 23, 2010 9:29 AM in response to matteocaldari
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 23, 2010 9:29 AM in response to matteocaldari
    Here the same problem. I noticed that I'm not able anymore to connect at any 2.4 Ghz network. But it work great with an base airport extreme 802.11N at 5 ghz.
    I tried to initialize my hard drive (2 times) and my airport starts to work again, after the system update to 10.6.5 it fails again triyng to connect a wifi network. I need a fix

    Message was edited by: gilduz

  • by DrVenture,

    DrVenture DrVenture Nov 23, 2010 10:06 AM in response to gilduz
    Level 2 (180 points)
    Nov 23, 2010 10:06 AM in response to gilduz
    Are you using WEP and 802.11N only in 2.4? If so, change to WPA2 PSK.

  • by needsomeihelp,

    needsomeihelp needsomeihelp Nov 23, 2010 10:37 AM in response to gilduz
    Level 1 (95 points)
    Nov 23, 2010 10:37 AM in response to gilduz
    Me too.

  • by del.amateuer,

    del.amateuer del.amateuer Nov 23, 2010 11:58 AM in response to corbasse
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 23, 2010 11:58 AM in response to corbasse
    Hi Corbasse,
    thanks a lot for your post. It gave me the decisive hint to solve my problem.
    I used airport + router (Vigor 2200) set to 169.254.x.x (+ manuall ID) unevenentfully for several years. Problems started after the 10.6.5 update: all non-Apple programs still got through to the internet, but Safari, Apple-software-update etc. refused to connect.
    As you described, I changed to a 192.168.x.x setup (+ DHCP) and all problems were solved !
    To those who have the above mentioned wifi problems, I can only recommend to check the settings of their router.

  • by putnik,

    putnik putnik Nov 23, 2010 12:08 PM in response to DrVenture
    Level 3 (795 points)
    Mac OS X
    Nov 23, 2010 12:08 PM in response to DrVenture
    It may be a good idea if Safari could incorporate a "WiFi Reset" feature (similar to the existing "Safari Reset" option), that deletes existing relevant plists and keychain passwords and then gives a box to enter a new network name, security setting and encryption code. To enable a clean instal after things get messy, as they do.

  • by John Wiedenheft,

    John Wiedenheft John Wiedenheft Nov 23, 2010 1:17 PM in response to John Wiedenheft
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 23, 2010 1:17 PM in response to John Wiedenheft
    I do want to say that I had two concurrent problems last night with my internet. Here was my timeline (w/o times!):

    1. Updated MacBook Pro (2010) to 10.6.5
    2. Restarted computer
    3. Logged onto computer, WiFi connects to router, but not to internet.
    4. Grabbed smartphone, changed to WiFi access - was able to get on internet
    5. Grabbed Windows XP laptop, was able to get on internet.
    6. Researched (Google) 10.6.5 wifi problem, found this thread.
    7. Ran through steps listed above.
    8. Internet worked on MacBook Pro w/ 10.6.5 update installed.

    Now, what I found out a little later when I got on Twitter, was that there was a Charter DNS outage in my area. (ended up being a 4-state outage, for what it's worth) However, I don't think the DNS situation was the whole problem, as I was able to get on the internet through the same Wireless router, that I couldn't get on with my MacBook Pro w/ 10.6.5.

    I only mention this because I talked with a colleague at work this morning, and mentioned 10.6.5 breaking my wifi, and he mentioned the DNS outage.

  • by corbasse,

    corbasse corbasse Nov 24, 2010 2:09 AM in response to del.amateuer
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Nov 24, 2010 2:09 AM in response to del.amateuer
    del.amateuer wrote:
    Hi Corbasse,
    thanks a lot for your post. It gave me the decisive hint to solve my problem.

    Hi del.amateuer,

    I'm glad I was able to be of service, and that it worked out for you too.

    It would have been a nice touch of Apple if they would have issued some warning/statement that support of this type of faulty network settings would be discontinued, instead of letting us search blindly by ourselves for days or weeks...

    Luckily I happened to discover that our router had a bad contact so we could just have it replaced. It would have cost us some major hassle and many weeks of non-productivity to get the settings fixed otherwise. We have a leased router with no user access. It would have cost many miles of local government red tape to get the settings changed, which is why we never corrected this before although we wanted to...
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